Offspring come home to roost

I am getting a little nervous. First, our older son and his family moved back to Indiana (if Evansville is considered Indiana) from Houston. Then my younger son came home to South Bend from Port Huron, Mich. And now my daughter and her husband and girls are planning to move back to the home front from Chicago in the spring. What's the deal? Do they think my wife and I are starting to look a little feeble and are in need of their assistance? Do they want to start jockeying for position for my vast fortune? Or in my daughter's case, do they want to get out of the Windy City before it implodes from the wild and bizarre effects of a Cubs World Series title? I plan to welcome them home -- even my son-in-law who, I guess, has become part of the overall package. They don't do much good for me in Chicago anymore anyway. At one point, my daughter lived a half a block from Wrigley Field. Then she married and they moved to a 20-minute walk away. Now, they live a pulse-jumping 30-minute drive away. They might as well come on back. A pharmacist and nurse by trade, they can pretty much find jobs anywhere. I guess that includes their hometown of South Bend -- which was never on their destination chart after college. A couple of their friends, who are already calling my daughter Amish Jen, put together a 10-point list on why they shouldn't leave Chicago. Some were pretty compelling arguments, to be honest. And they didn't even mention the lakefront ... the arts ... the cough, cough, cough Cubs. So my wife and I decided to double that list and come up with 20 reasons why the South Bend area is not a bad place for them to live, either. 1. Grandma Judy (a great baby-sitter) 2. Grandpa John (a great baby-sitter) 3. Granny Margaret (a great baby-sitter) 4. Grumps Bill (a great I'll-join-you-for-a-nap grandparent) 5. Just about everything is no farther than 15 minutes away. 6. Dairy Queens and Chick-Fil-A's. 7. People usually don't honk at you if you don't react to a green light like a sprinter to a starter's gun. 8. Cubs tickets, $42; Silver Hawks, $5. 9. Eventually, just about anybody you want to see (Blue Man Group, "The Producers," Olivia Newton-John, Vince Gill and even Chicago itself) will come to the Morris Performing Arts Center. 10. During most seasons, Notre Dame can kick the puss out of Northwestern (and maybe sometimes the Bears, too). 11. Parking spaces are available. 12. Chicago and all it has to offer is less than two hours away (unless there is a wreck on the Toll Road, a backup at the Skyway booths or road construction on the Dan Ryan). 13. If South Bend doesn't have it, Mishawaka usually does. 14. A river runs through it. 15. Nearby Lake Michigan and its eastern shores really aren't reserved just for Chicago folks. 16. Movies come here, too. 17. You want diversity. We've got diversity. 18. It's a buyer's market for homes. 19. Good parks, good library systems, good zoo and some pretty darn good schoolteachers and police officers. 20. You can still get Chicago radio stations and laugh at the traffic reports. Bill Moor's column appears on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Contact him at bmoor@sbtinfo.com, or write him at the South Bend Tribune, 225 W. Colfax Ave., South Bend, IN 46626; (574) 235-6072. Bill's new book of columns, "Moor or Less Volume 2: Old Soldiers, Good Neighbors and Loyal Dogs," is now available at The Tribune's front counter and by mail order.